IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ash/wpaper/143.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cheap talk with multiple senders and receivers: Information transmission in ethnic conflicts

Author

Listed:
  • Satyam Kumar Rai

    (Ashoka University)

  • Suraj Shekhar

    (Ashoka University)

Abstract

We model a society with two ethnic groups in which the state of the world is uncertain. Without new information, ethnic conflict is inevitable. If there is an informed agent who knows the state of the world and can communicate via private cheap talk messages, can she prevent conflict? We find that while a peace-loving informed agent is unable to prevent conflict as she cannot communicate credibly with either ethnicity, a more aggressive informed agent can communicate information to her own ethnicity, and therefore prevent conflict with positive probability. Furthermore, we show that if each ethnicity has their own informed agent, then both ethnic groups receive information but, under some conditions, there is an informative equilibrium in the environment with one informed agent which generates a higher probability of peace than any informative equilibrium with two informed agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Satyam Kumar Rai & Suraj Shekhar, 2025. "Cheap talk with multiple senders and receivers: Information transmission in ethnic conflicts," Working Papers 143, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper143_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goltsman, Maria & Pavlov, Gregory, 2011. "How to talk to multiple audiences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 100-122, May.
    2. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2014. "Incumbency Advantage in Non-Democracies," NBER Working Papers 20519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Cukierman, Alex & Tommasi, Mariano, 1998. "When Does It Take a Nixon to Go to China?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 180-197, March.
    4. Basu, Pathikrit & Dutta, Souvik & Shekhar, Suraj, 2019. "Ethnic conflicts with informed agents: A cheap talk game with multiple audiences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Sandeep Baliga & Tomas Sjostrom, 2012. "The Strategy of Manipulating Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2897-2922, October.
    6. Andrew Kydd, 2003. "Which Side Are You On? Bias, Credibility, and Mediation," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(4), pages 597-611, October.
    7. Farrell, Joseph & Gibbons, Robert, 1989. "Cheap Talk with Two Audiences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1214-1223, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Basu, Pathikrit & Dutta, Souvik & Shekhar, Suraj, 2019. "Ethnic conflicts with informed agents: A cheap talk game with multiple audiences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    2. Bruno Salcedo, 2019. "Persuading part of an audience," Papers 1903.00129, arXiv.org.
    3. Kim, Duk Gyoo & Yoon, Yeochang, 2019. "A theory of FAQs: Public announcements with rational ignorance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 560-574.
    4. Makoto Shimoji, 2016. "Rationalizable Persuasion," Discussion Papers 16/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    5. Golosov, Mikhail & Skreta, Vasiliki & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Wilson, Andrea, 2014. "Dynamic strategic information transmission," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 304-341.
    6. Daniel Habermacher, 2022. "Information Aggregation in Multidimensional Cheap Talk," Working Papers 169, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    7. Taneva, Ina A, 2015. "Information Design," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-50, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Hagenbach, Jeanne & Koessler, Frédéric, 2016. "Full disclosure in decentralized organizations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 5-7.
    9. Foerster, Manuel, 2019. "Dynamics of strategic information transmission in social networks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    10. McGee, Andrew & Yang, Huanxing, 2013. "Cheap talk with two senders and complementary information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 181-191.
    11. Chan, Jimmy & Gupta, Seher & Li, Fei & Wang, Yun, 2019. "Pivotal persuasion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 178-202.
      • Jimmy Chan & Seher Gupta & Fei Li & Yun Wang, 2018. "Pivotal Persuasion," Working Papers 2018-11-03, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    12. Terrence L. Chapman, 2007. "International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics, and Institutional Legitimacy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(1), pages 134-166, February.
    13. Taneva, Ina A, 2015. "Information Design," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-50, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    14. Koessler, Frédéric & Martimort, David, 2012. "Optimal delegation with multi-dimensional decisions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1850-1881.
    15. Scott Wolford, 2020. "War and diplomacy on the world stage: Crisis bargaining before third parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(2), pages 235-261, April.
    16. Duran, Mihael, 2014. "Board directors’ preferences – What are good aggregation rules?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 84-90.
    17. Kristopher W. Ramsay, 2004. "Politics at the Water’s Edge," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(4), pages 459-486, August.
    18. Battaglini, Marco & Makarov, Uliana, 2014. "Cheap talk with multiple audiences: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 147-164.
    19. Xie, Yinxi & Xie, Yang, 2017. "Machiavellian experimentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 685-711.
    20. Yingni Guo, 2021. "Information transmission and voting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 835-868, October.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ashoka University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ashoka.edu.in .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.